Penrith Regional Gallery is excited to announce the selected participants for the Ancher Points: Emerging Artist Program 2025. This immersive professional development initiative, taking place from Monday, 23 June to Friday, 27 June 2025, is designed to equip emerging artists from Greater Western Sydney with the skills and industry connections needed to transition into professional practice. The program comprises two key phases:
- Ancher Points Intensive (23–27 June 2025): A five-day immersive experience at Ancher House, focusing on the business of being an artist through guided interactive activities and peer-to-peer learning with leading industry professionals. This phase provides dynamic opportunities for artists to connect across Greater Western Sydney.
- Industry Experience: Building on the fundamentals learned in the intensive, this phase offers real-life opportunities for participants to demonstrate their knowledge and skills. Participants will be eligible to apply for a series of exhibiting opportunities, bringing their ideas to life.
The twelve selected artists for our Ancher Points: Emerging Artist Program 2025 are:
- Michael Black
- Emma Griffiths
- Ilana Lapid
- Keorattana Luangrathrajasombat (PANDAKERO)
- Laura Meggitt
- Jessica Montecinos
- Audrey Newton
- Julie Scifo
- Anjali Sharma
- Jamie Smith
- Sirinya Stuebe
- Richard Trang
JULIE SCIFO
Julie Scifo is an artist based in Lithgow who explores how personal narratives echo collective experiences, through dominant themes of nostalgia, memory and personal history. Through her preferred medium of painting – which she considers to be a form of class rebellion – she considers grassroots culture with a sense of rebellion, humour, and play.
Julie Scifo studied a Bachelor of Fine Arts at the University of Western Sydney from 2005-2007, was the winner of the Nepean art prize in 2024, and has been a finalist in prizes including the Blacktown City Art Prize, Fisher’s Ghost Art Award, and Adelaide Perry Prize for Drawing. and is currently studying a Bachelor of Creative Practice at Nepean TAFE.
JESSICA MONTECINOS
Jessica Montecinos is an emerging artist, creative technologist and Arts worker based in West Hoxton who navigates her experience of the diaspora through projection mapping, light, and interactive media. She is driven by the desire to explore, reclaim and share her Bolivian heritage, using her practice to bring to light Bolivia’s rich and often underrepresented histories.
Montecinos graduated from UNSW Arts, Design & Architecture with a Bachelor of Media Arts Honours in 2022, whilst undertaking self-directed learning on programs such as Mad Mapper to develop her pratice in spatial design. She has exhibited in several group exhibitions, including at AIRspace, Saywell Gallery, and Mounted ARI.
SIRINYA STUEBE
Sirinya Stuebe is an emerging artist based in Blaxland. A UNSW student studying a Bachelor of Fine Arts / Education, her practice works across found materials, recycled fabrics, and tactile elements of collage and ceramics. Sirinya’s identity as a second-generation immigrant and LGBTQIA-identifying woman fuels her art, exploring ideas of feminism, cultural communication, community and politicised bodies. Her most recent exhibition credits included the student-run group show OFF 5SCRIPT; Open Studios Exhibition.
ANJALI SHARMA
Anjali Sharma is a Blacktown-based mixed media artist. Experimenting with textures and luminosity, her practice is fueled by identity, movement, and human connection. Influenced by street art, graphic illustration, and classical portraiture, Anjali’s work both celebrates and honours local communities and figure across Western Sydney. Anjali is an active member of Riff Raff ARI, and has previously won the Local Artist Prize for the 2024 Blacktown City Art Prize.
EMMA GRIFFITHS
Emma Griffiths is an artist whose practice is grounded in black and white photography. Harnessing the exaggerated and dramatic quality of monochrome stills, they work across digital and analogue photography to express and communicate the way they see the world around them. Emma has been influenced by the likes of Edward Hopper and Ansel Adams – but her biggest inspiration is often the beauty (and sometimes ugliness) of her surrounding environment.
Emma has studied and lived in the Penrith area since 2019, and is involved with the local arts community and local ARI, Riff Raff. Her first solo exhibition, Untitled (42) was held at Penrith Regional Gallery in 2025.
JAMIE SMITH
Jamie Smith is a Filipino-Australian artist based in Jordan Springs whose work is deeply influenced by their experiences of growing up between two cultures, often finding influence in Filipino symbols and Australia’s landscapes— from the vastness of nature to the quiet rhythms of suburban life. Smith explores this cultural intersection through an interdisciplinary practice that spans sculpture, installation, zine-making, and sound art performance.
Jamie Smith completed their BA and Masters at the University of Western Sydney in Kingswood, are a member of the Penrith-based ARI Riff Raff, and have exhibited in several group exhibitions, including Paper Forms (2024), Clay (2024) APS At 14 (2024), and Process(ed) (2025).
KEORATTANA LUANGRATHRAJASOMBAT
Keorattana Luangrathrajasombat is a multimedia artist of Lao heritage based in St Clair. When working under the artist name PANDAKERO, Keorattana works across a variety of audio-visual mediums, including 3D art, motion and interactive design, and audio. Under his full name, he recently exhibited at Articulate Project Space, titled R0CK B0D1ES, a sculptural body of work exploring vulnerability, awkardness, and resilience through clunky, stone-like figures. As a Lao Australian artist, Keorattana aims to continue exploring his cultural experiences through more intimate and layered expressions across his work.
MICHAEL BLACK
Michael Black is a Penrith-based artist with strong ties to Western Sydney. Working with mixed media, painting and drawing, his practice is motivated by cultural identity, family, and personal experiences, with inspiration drawn from his bushwalks and connection to nature. Through abstract and expressive visual storytelling, Michael’s art often draws from discovered landscapes, encountered people, and the rich cultural diversity of Western Sydney. He has also collaborated with architects, designers, developers, and curators, who help bring his work across numerous contexts.
RICHARD TRANG
Richard Trang is an emerging artist practicing on Dharug land whose work investigates photography as both medium and subject, seeking to unravel the complexity of photography’s universal comprehensibility. Trang’s recent work has considered how audiences can walk within, around, and through images as opposed to being ‘in front’ of an image.
Richard Trang obtained his BFA Honours from UNSW Arts, Design & Architecture in 2024, and has since exhibited both nationally and internationally. He was a finalist in the 2024 GradFoto Prize, and regularly contributes his photography to print publications.
LAURA MEGGITT
Laura Meggitt is an Indigenous contemporary artist based in Werrington, who is currently studying a Visual Arts Certificate 111 at TAFE Nepean. Working across acrylic paint, watercolour and pastels, her paintings reflect her passion for contemporary Indigenous art through landscapes and plein air painting, alongside her evolving interests in expressionism, colour movement, and realism.
AUDREY NEWTON
Audrey Newton is a Pakistani/Australian artist based in St Marys. Working across sculpture, painting, and installation, and engaging with materials such as latex and epoxy resin, her practice explores the intersections of animism, magical realism, and intuition. Such ideas prompt her to engage with personal themes to build a dialogue around dialectics and material agency, alongside the embodied transformation, tension, and the evolution of tellurian objects. Audrey is currently an artist in residence at Parramatta Artist Studio (PAS) in Granville, and is undertaking a PhD at Sydney College of the Arts.
ILANA LAPID
Ilana Lapid is a multidisciplinary artist based in South Penrith. Working with found objects and textiles, her work explores the residues of hyperstimulation and entropy, transforming mundane or junky materials into objects of value. An artist with a background in drawing and painting, Ilana’s influences include Charlie Sofo, Kenny Pittock, David Shrigley, and John Singer Sargent. She is currently completing her Bachelor Fine Arts / Science at UNSW, and will make her curatorial debut with Kudos this September.